Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub, remain one of the best teams the spy genre has ever produced. / Christopher Raphael, Fox

by Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

by Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

For Fox, the problem is a ratings collapse, fueled by an aging American Idol and the age-old failure to create new hits. And a stop-gap solution is the temporary, 12-week return of one of its best and most popular series, 24 (*** out of 4; Monday, at 8 ET/PT) , once again produced by Howard Gordon (who has since given us Homeland), and once again starring Kiefer Sutherland.

What that means is that the show and the spy genre it helped revive are in extremely good hands, with Sutherland quickly proving that Jack Bauer's ability to snap necks, and the star's ability to add gravitas to absurd situations, remain intact. There's nothing much new here, but if it seems odd that a series with a real-time structure, split-screen shots and whiplash-inducing twists that once broke the mold now seems to be easing back into it, just chalk it up to the natural side-effects of familiarity and success.

Since its inception, 24 has mirrored our latest security concerns, our then-preferred solutions, and our current feelings toward the people charged with protecting us. While Jack has always been the steady, self-sacrificing hero at the center, the show's view of his methods, and of the competency and ethical morality of those around him, seemed to darken each year of its run.

Welcome to what may be the show's darkest day. Jack is a fugitive, captured with ease in London by an American team led by Steve Navarro (Benjamin Bratt). Only one agent, the recently disgraced Kate Morgan (Yvonne Strahovski), thinks Jack must be up to something, but as usual with a show that has always loved its Cassandra figures, she's ignored.

She's right, of course: Jack has an agenda. Without any spoilers, it involves drones and former Secretary of Defense (and now President) James Heller (William Devane), who is in London to negotiate a new treaty with the British Prime Minister (the great Stephen Fry). Heller is accompanied by his daughter Audrey (Kim Raver), whose affair with Jack had once left her comatose, and Heller's chief of staff Mark Boudreau (Tate Donovan), who is now married to Audrey.

Thankfully, we also get to revisit with Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub), who has joined a Wikileaks-type hacker organization, the better to express her disenchantment with the folks who used to employ her. Her goth redo does seem a bit misguided, but underneath, she's still Chloe, and really, who cares about much else?

In these opening, still in real-time hours at least there's no sign of the show's two most tired tropes - the agency mole and the White House conspirator - so we can only pray that if the writers have not yet planted them in a future episode, they'll refrain from doing so. Otherwise, it's two hours of all the things you love (or don't) about 24: The twists and turns, the recalcitrant, dimwitted superiors, the nick-of-time escapes and oh-so-close near-captures. And, of course, there's Sutherland and Rajskub, still one of the best teams the spy genre has ever produced.